Travellers investing $400 million for integrated resort in Cebu

MANILA, Philippines — Travellers International Hotel Group Inc., the leisure and tourism arm of Andrew Tan’s Alliance Global Group Inc., is looking to invest about $400 million to develop a new integrated resort in Cebu.

AGI president and CEO Kevin Tan said the company is eyeing to start the construction of the project by the first half of next year.

“We’re looking to start building soon and it would be at our Mactan Newtown township,” Tan said in an interview yesterday on the sidelines of the Inside Asian Gaming Summit.

“We already got our letter of no objection and we’re almost getting the license ready,” he said.

According to Tan, the start of the commercial operations of the project is targeted at the end of 2026.

As an integrated resort, the project will have gaming area, food and beverage outlet stores, villas and a five- star hotel.

“The beautiful thing about it is it will be across our convention center, the Mactan Expo. It will also be adjacent to two of our existing hotels and we will also have our own beachfront as we are besides Shangri-La actually,” Tan said.

The Mactan Expo is a standalone convention center with a 2,500-seating capacity being built by Megaworld inside the 30-hectare Mactan Newtown township in Lapu-Lapu City.

Travellers’ upcoming Cebu project is poised to replicate the success of the Newport World Resorts in Pasay.

Travellers is the owner and operator of the Newport World Resorts, a one-stop, non-stop entertainment and leisure destination and the first integrated resort in the Philippines.

The company was awarded one of the first licenses issued by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. in 2008 to construct and operate integrated leisure and gaming facilities to an international standard with the goal of enhancing tourism in the country.